Working Papers

We evaluate the empirical support for a broad class of long run risk models using information in factors extracted through principal component analysis of the covariance matrix of log price dividend ratios of twenty five equity portfolios formed on Size and Book-to-Market. We identify two price-dividend ratio factor proxies for economy wide long run risk, one tracking the volatility of the growth rate in economy wide aggregate consumption, and the other predicting the growth rates in the stock index portfolio dividends and aggregate consumption, consistent with the implications of these models. We show that that the long run risk factor driving expected consumption growth is not recoverable from the cross section of excess returns alone. The price dividend ratio factors perform better th...

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